Tom Dietterich

“AI has developed as a “technology-first” undertaking that seeks to automate as much of human reasoning and decision making as possible. However, because automation is always incomplete and imperfect, the resulting applied systems must rely on human users to deal with all of the impossible-to-automate aspects, such as taking the wheel when a self-driving car is unable to behave correctly. These may not correspond to any coherent task that humans can do. My hope is that HMI will realize a different vision in which design focuses on tasks that people can do well and finds ways that AI can empower people to do them better. For example, how can we improve human situational awareness and reduce fatigue while driving?”

Twitter: @tdietterich

Tom Dietterich

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, Oregon State

Dr. Dietterich (AB Oberlin College 1977; MS University of Illinois 1979; PhD Stanford University 1984) is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University.  Dietterich is one of the pioneers of the field of Machine Learning and has authored more than 200 refereed publications and two books. His current research topics include robust artificial intelligence, robust human-AI systems, and applications in sustainability. 

Dietterich has devoted many years of service to the research community. He is a former President of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and the founding president of the International Machine Learning Society. Other major roles include Executive Editor of the journal Machine Learning, co-founder of the Journal for Machine Learning Research, and program chair of AAAI 1990 and NIPS 2000. He currently serves as one of the moderators for the cs.LG category on arXiv.